The Shoemakers’ Holiday

OATLEY: Too mean is my poor girl for his high birth.
Poor citizens must not with courtiers wed,
Who will in silks and gay apparel spend
More in one year than I am worth by far.
Therefore your honour need not doubt my girl.

LINCOLN: To approve your loves to me? No, subtlety!
Nephew, that twenty pound he doth bestow
For joy to rid you from his daughter Rose.
But cousins both, now here are none but friends,
I would not have you cast an amorous eye
Upon so mean a project as the love
Of a gay, wanton, painted citizen.
I know this churl, even in the height of scorn,
Doth hate the mixture of his blood with thine.
I pray thee do thou so. Remember, coz,
What honourable fortunes wait on thee.
Increase the King’s love which so brightly shines
And gilds thy hopes. I have no heir but thee –
And yet not thee, if with a wayward spirit
Thou start from the true bias of my love.

ROSE: Here sit thou down upon this flowery bank,
And make a garland for thy Lacy’s head.
These pinks, these roses, and these violets,
These blushing gillyflowers, these marigolds,
The fair embroidery of his coronet,
Carry not half such beauty in their cheeks
As the sweet countenance of my Lacy doth.
Oh, my most unkind father! O my stars!
Why loured you so at my nativity
To make me love, yet live robbed of my love?
Here as a thief am I imprisoned
For my dear Lacy’s sake within those walls,
Which by my father’s cost were builded up
For better purposes. Here must I languish
For him that doth as much lament, I know,
Mine absence, as for him I pine in woe.

LACY: How many shapes have gods and kings devised
Thereby to compass their desired loves?
It is no shame for Roland Lacy, then,
To clothe his cunning with the gentle craft,
That thus disguised, I may unknown possess
The only happy presence of my Rose.
For her have I forsook my charge in France,
Incurred the King’s displeasure, and stirred up
Rough hatred in mine uncle Lincoln’s breast.
O love, how powerful art thou, that canst change
High birth to baseness, and a noble mind
To the mean semblance of a shoemaker?

ROSE: Why do you stay and not pursue your game?

SYBIL: I’ll hold my life their hunting nags be lame.

HAMMON: A deer more dear is found within this place.

ROSE: But not the deer, sir, which you had in chase.

HAMMON: I chased the deer, but this deer chaseth me.

OATLEY: This Hammon is a proper gentleman,
A citizen by birth, fairly allied –
How fit an husband were he for my girl!
Well, I will in, and do the best I can
To match my daughter to this gentleman.

HAMMON: What, would you have me pule, and pine, and pray,
With ‘lovely lady’, ‘mistress of my heart’?
‘Pardon your servant’, and the rhymer play,
Railing on Cupid and his tyrant’s dart?
Or that I undertake some martial spoil,
Wearing your glove at tourney and at tilt,
And tell how many gallants I unhorsed?
Sweet, will this pleasure you?

ROSE: Yea, when wilt begin?
What, love-rhymes, man? Fie on that deadly sin!

EYRE: Be ruled, sweet Rose, thou’rt ripe for a man. Marry not with a boy, that has no more hair on his face than thou hast on thy cheeks. A courtier? Wash, go by, stand not upon pishery pashery. Those silken fellows are but painted images – outsides, outsides, Rose, their inner linings are torn. No, my fine mouse, marry me with a gentleman grocer like my Lord Mayor your father. A grocer is a sweet trade – plums, plums! Had I a son or daughter should marry out of the generation and blood of the shoemakers, he should pack. What, the gentle trade is a living for a man through Europe – through the world!

OATLEY: A Fleming butterbox? A shoemaker?
Will she forget her birth, requite my care
With such ingratitude? Scorned she young Hammon
To love a honnikin, a needy knave?
Well, let her fly, I’ll not fly after her.
Let her starve if she will. She’s none of mine.

EYRE: So, my dear liege, Sim Eyre and my brethren the gentlemen shoemakers shall set your sweet majesty’s image cheek by jowl by Saint Hugh, for this honour you have done poor Simon Eyre. I beseech your grace pardon my rude behaviour. I am a handicraftsman, yet my heart is without craft. I would be sorry at my soul that my boldness should offend my King.

KING: Lincoln, no more.
Dost thou not know that love respects no blood?
Cares not for difference of birth or state?
The maid is young, well born, fair, virtuous,
A worthy bride for any gentleman.
Besides, your nephew for her sake did stoop
To bare necessity, and, as I hear,
Forgetting honours and all courtly pleasures,
To gain her love became a shoemaker.
As for the honour which he lost in France,
Thus I redeem it. Lacy, kneel thee down.
[Lacy kneels. The King draws his sword and dubs him.]
Arise, Sir Roland Lacy. – Tell me now,
Tell me in earnest, Oatley, canst thou chide,
Seeing thy Rose a lady and a bride?